


Finding It Again

by Zantedeschieae



Category: Persona 2
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29559261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zantedeschieae/pseuds/Zantedeschieae
Summary: The look on Tatsuya’s face is so achingly familiar- staring expressionless down at his food, slouched over like the weight of his thoughts was literally pulling him down, ignoring that there was anyone else around him and pretending to be alone instead. It looks so much like the other Tatsuya, like his other brother, that Katsuya has to stop himself from reaching across the table and putting a hand on his shoulder, telling himit’s not your faultandyou don’t have to carry it alonelike he did back then, in the later days when they’d grown closer than they’d ever been.But, for all their similarities, this wasn’t that Tatsuya, and if he tried to set a hand on his shoulder he’d probably just shove him away.--Katsuya deals with knowing things his brother can't remember.
Relationships: Suou Katsuya & Suou Tatsuya
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Finding It Again

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't realize until after I wrote this that Tatsuya doesn't actually take the lighter when Jun offers it to him in EP, but we can pretend.

“Where did I get this?”

Tatsuya doesn’t look at him when he asks the question, just continues pushing his dinner around on his plate with one hand and sets his lighter on the table with the other. He never looks at him when he speaks anymore. 

It’s hard, starting over. 

Katsuya knew there’d be questions like this, and really, he’s just thankful that Tatsuya’s speaking to him at all, so he’s disappointed to realize that he has no idea how to answer. 

Really, he should have thought about this before. He and Maya had spent ages deliberating over what story they should tell Tatsuya to explain away the past few months, but… 

They hadn’t really gotten far. It felt wrong to lie. 

When he doesn’t say anything, Tatsuya wordlessly puts the lighter back into his pocket. He doesn’t seem very interested in his dinner, given that he’s barely eaten any of it in the time Katsuya’s eaten half of his own plate, but that’s not stopping Tatsuya from turning his whole attention to it as if even an unwanted dinner is preferable to looking at his brother. 

The look on Tatsuya’s face is so achingly familiar- staring expressionless down at his food, slouched over like the weight of his thoughts was literally pulling him down, ignoring that there was anyone else around him and pretending to be alone instead. It looks so much like the other Tatsuya, like his other brother, that Katsuya has to stop himself from reaching across the table and putting a hand on his shoulder, telling him _it’s not your fault_ and _you don’t have to carry it alone_ like he did back then, in the later days when they’d grown closer than they’d ever been. 

But, for all their similarities, this wasn’t that Tatsuya, and if he tried to set a hand on his shoulder he’d probably just shove him away. 

Ironically, the things that had once brought his brother- _my other-side brother,_ Katsuya corrects himself, _you’ve got to keep them apart_ \- and him closer together were now the things that were pushing them apart. Sure, they’d never been exactly close in their whole lives, at least not since they were both little children, but… but back then, Katsuya hadn’t known exactly how to fix it. In fact, he could remember agonizing over trying to figure out what he was doing wrong and why Tatsuya never seemed to want to be around him.

He knows exactly what’s pushing them apart now. It’s just that he can’t do anything about it. 

Three weeks ago, after he and Maya and Ulala and Kaoru suddenly found themselves standing on the road to a Honmaru Park that was now less of a park and more of a ruin, he had rushed home as fast as he possibly could to find Tatsuya, asleep in his room, not seeming bothered by the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows onto his face, like it was just one of those many Sundays where Katsuya would lecture him later about how he shouldn’t spend so much time sleeping in. 

Except it wasn’t a Sunday. And Tatsuya, up until they’d joined up with his other-side self, hadn’t been home in months. 

It’d been easy to explain to him at first. It was pretty easy to sell a lie that _you were caught in a demon attack, it might have affected your memory_ when Tatsuya was the only person in the city who didn’t know everything that had happened. All it had taken was for Tatsuya to take one look outside and see the ruined buildings for him to understand that strange things happened for everyone. Sure, he hadn’t believed the demon thing at first, but once he’d gone out and spoken to anyone around the city? There were thousands of people who could all confirm the likelihood of the story. 

It wasn’t technically a lie, either. If you counted “you” to mean both him or his other-side self, if you counted Nyarlathotep as a sort of demon-

Okay, maybe it was a lie in any way that mattered, but… Katsuya finds it easier when he can pretend it wasn’t. 

With him and Maya figuring it all out- and with Kaoru and Ulala’s… insights, too, though Katsuya was less inclined to give them any credit- they managed a rather credible story. It had details, it had alibis. There were still some holes in the story they didn’t know how to fill- they’d been hoping Tatsuya wouldn’t find Eikichi or Jun any time soon, because they had no idea how to justify the memories those two would have of him- but it was complete enough that they were sure Tatsuya would accept it, at least for a long enough time that they could figure out something else. 

Katsuya doesn’t like to think about the fact that they’d be lying to him forever. 

But, as thorough as they’d been, there had still been something they’d missed. Tatsuya- _other-side Tatsuya, get it right_ \- had neglected to inform them of a rather important detail. Other-side Tatsuya, years ago, had suffered a stab wound at the hands of Sudou in the shrine fire, an event that other-Tatsuya and Maya had described to him- he still couldn’t wrap his head around it, someone had _stabbed_ his brother, why hadn’t his other-side self been there to protect him, he should have been there- which shouldn’t have mattered, because it never happened here. 

But when other-Tatsuya, it seemed, had come over to this side and taken this-side’s Tatsuya’s body, those scars must have somehow carried over. Katsuya had never noticed. And other-Tatsuya never mentioned it, because either he hadn’t thought it was important to share- _which would be just like him, really Tatsuya, why did you never tell us anything_ \- or he’d assumed that they’d go away when he returned to his side. 

Either way, they hadn’t. And Tatsuya was smart enough to realize that the scar on his back was far, far older than just the few months of his memory that was missing. 

That had been the first piece, the first thing that Katsuya hadn’t been able to explain when he’d asked. Katsuya would never forget the look on his brother’s face when he hadn’t been able to give him an answer. He’d stuttered out something about it healing really quickly, hadn’t he heard about all those places in town that had been rumoured to be able to cure anything?- but it was clear as day that Tatsuya didn’t believe him. 

He’d looked so alone at that moment. Katsuya had recognized the look- it was the moment when someone realizes that there’s no one in the world they can trust completely. 

He’d called Maya immediately after that to explain what’d happened, and they’d all met up to try and come up with a new cover story, but it was already too late. Tatsuya had always been the sort of person who didn’t really care about needing to understand everything about something before acting, and they’d been counting on that, counting on the fact that he’d probably just take their story at face value and keep going anyway, not because he trusted them implicitly but just because he wasn’t the sort of person to sweat the details- 

But he was also the sort of person who never, ever gave up on something when he started. And that day, when Katsuya had been unable to explain the scars, Tatsuya had become determined to find out the truth. 

_Or_ , Katsuya thinks, _maybe just determined to prove that I’m a liar_. 

And just like that, the new and fragile trust he’d found, the tentative understanding he’d gained with his brother- both of them, the similarities they shared- was gone. Reversed. 

When they’d saved the world and everything went back to normal and it was all fixed, Katsuya’s very first thought had been _I can fix things with Tatsuya again_. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot but he’d learned better, he’d learned what he was doing wrong, and Tatsuya would be so confused and he’d need him, so… so he would do better this time. 

But now that was gone. All because Katsuya had done what he’d sworn he would never do, what he’d sworn ever since the day years and years ago when Tatsuya had come crying to him because their father was gone and he didn’t understand why, and that was lie to him. He would never lie to Tatsuya. Lies took their father away, and they were never going to take his brother away from him too. 

He never, ever could have expected things would turn out like this. 

He looks at Tatsuya across the table. Tatsuya, of course, still doesn’t look at him- the only sign that he notices his brother’s gaze is that he starts shoveling his barely-touched dinner into his mouth like he wants to finish it as quickly as possible so he can leave and get away from him. 

Katsuya freezes. Tatsuya’s getting through his dinner at a rate that Ulala would call “impressive”, though Katsuya just thinks it’s worrying, he’ll choke if he’s not careful, and it’s not polite- but the moment he finishes that plate he’s going to leave and Katsuya doesn’t really know a lot of things for certain anymore, but he knows with absolute conviction that right now he does not want Tatsuya to leave-

Katsuya sets down his fork. 

“The lighter,” he starts, taking a deep breath. Tatsuya doesn’t even react. _Damn it, Katsuya, what are you doing? This isn’t going to help, he’s still going to hate you, what are you even going to say anyway? You can’t tell the truth, you know you can’t tell the truth-_

“The lighter was given to you by someone you saved,” he says. Tatsuya slows a little. 

“Before you got hurt,” he says, trying to seem calm because he needs Tatsuya to trust him, but unable to slow the racing of his heart as he hopes he doesn’t say the wrong thing, “you were just… around town, one day. I don’t know what you were doing, I just, uh, heard an account of what happened so I don’t know, but-” _Damn it, Katsuya, now you’re rambling, this isn’t going to work-_

The sound of Tatsuya’s fork on his plate stops. Katsuya risks a glance up, and it seems Tatsuya had exactly the same thought, because their eyes meet for half a second before both of them hurriedly glance away, and Katsuya braces himself for the sound of a chair being pushed back because he’s crossing the line, isn’t he, he’s definitely crossing the line, Tatsuya’s going to leave-

“I… saved someone?” He hears Tatsuya say instead. Tatsuya’s voice is quiet, and it even wavers a little, but it’s got the same strength his other-side self always had, too. 

Katsuya smiles and hopes it doesn’t look forced. 

“You did. It was… one of those terrorist attacks. Before you got hurt. Someone got trapped and you… you stepped in to save them. It was reckless of you, you know. You could have gotten hurt, you shouldn’t rush into things without thinking like that-”

Katsuya hears the chair screech back and _I’ve scared him away again, why did I say that, why do I always mess this up_ \- but Tatsuya doesn’t leave. Katsuya hears a click and glances up and realizes _oh, he only shifted to get the lighter_ , and- 

Katsuya takes another deep breath. “You saved a kid. About your age. He gave you the lighter as thanks.” Was that too much? Maybe he shouldn’t be telling Tatsuya this. No, he knows he shouldn’t be telling him this, he can’t know these things- 

The lighter clicks open and closed a few more times. 

“It looks expensive,” Tatsuya says. 

Katsuya frowns. “Why would you know what an expensive lighter looks like? You haven’t smoked before, right?”

Tatsuya makes a noise that is almost like a laugh at that. 

“No,” Tatsuya says. “Just- shouldn’t I give it back? If it’s important.”

Katsuya breathes out a sigh of relief at that- both at the assurance that his brother doesn’t smoke, and that Tatsuya is actually holding up a conversation with him which hasn’t happened since- 

“Oh,” Katsuya says. “No. You, uh, tried to refuse it, when it was given to you. But the kid you saved insisted.” Wait, if he supposedly only heard this story from someone else, why would he know that? “I mean, that’s… that’s what you said. When I asked you about it.” 

Tatsuya looks down at the lighter in his hand, one finger tracing over the engraving. Katsuya assumes that’s the end of the conversation, because frankly it’s a miracle Tatsuya even spoke to him at all, and goes back to his dinner. Tatsuya doesn’t even touch what remains of his and just stares at the lighter instead, clearly deep in thought. 

Did he say too much? If he tells Tatsuya too much, he’s going to get too curious and try to find out the truth, and Tatsuya can’t know the truth, but-

But Katsuya feels a little better than he has in weeks. 

Katsuya finishes his dinner and collects his plate, reluctantly taking his brother’s half-finished one too because he shows no signs of finishing it, and takes them to the kitchen. The second he’s out of his brother’s sight he leans against the counter, letting himself freak out just a little because _if I said the wrong thing the world might end_ and that’s a lot of pressure for what should have been an ordinary dinner conversation, but it’s alright. He needs to call Maya ASAP. She’ll know what to do about all of this. 

Right. Because they can do something about all of this. They can figure this out. He didn’t mess anything up. He didn’t ruin anything. 

He hears footsteps coming his way and hurries to straighten himself up, busying himself with bringing the dishes to the sink so that no one can see his hands shaking. 

Tatsuya walks into the kitchen, standing in the doorway. He’s staring down at the lighter in his hand, still clicking it open and closed, open and closed. 

“… Do you need help with the dishes?” Tatsuya says, not looking up. 

… 

… Did Tatsuya just willingly choose to spend time around him? 

“No, I’ve got it,” Katsuya says, suddenly feeling very awkward. “You should study or something. You have a lot to catch up on.” 

Tatsuya doesn’t say anything, just responds with a noise that Katsuya can never tell if it means he agrees with him or disagrees, or maybe that he just doesn’t really have an opinion either way. 

Katsuya starts filling the sink up with water, thankful that he’s got his back to Tatsuya so he can’t see his face because he can’t keep it straight right now. 

Tatsuya doesn’t leave. 

“Do you… do you want something?” Katsuya says, when the silence stretches on longer than is comfortable. 

“‘s nothing,” Tatsuya says, and turns to leave. “Sorry for bothering you.” 

_Wait, no_ -

“It’s not bothering me,” he gets out, and is immediately grateful that the thing he said on impulse to keep Tatsuya from leaving was actually something sensible for once, “I could use some help drying these.” 

Tatsuya grabs a dish towel and walks over to him. He stands a little farther away than he needs to, and it means that water drips onto the counter whenever he passes the dishes over to him, but Katsuya doesn’t mind. It means they can’t see each other, not really, and that means Tatsuya can’t see the way his hands still shake every time he has to think of something to say. 

They work in silence. Katsuya’s not sure why exactly Tatsuya decided to stick around, but he’s not going to question it. If Tatsuya just wants to stand there in silence not looking at each other, he’s fine with that- it definitely beats Tatsuya disappearing the first moment he’s free. 

Katsuya wonders if he should say something. He wants to apologize, he realizes. He wants to apologize to Tatsuya for all the lies and all the secrets he’s keeping from him that he has a right to know but Katsuya can’t tell him. It’s not fair, he thinks, not for the first time, that this-side’s Tatsuya has to pay for other-side Tatsuya’s choices. Not that he blames Tatsuya for anything, not that he ever will- but… 

But he wants to tell Tatsuya the truth. 

Katsuya makes up his mind to say something, and starts piecing together what it’s going to be, what he can possibly say that somehow gets what he wants to say across without making Tatsuya question things any harder, when surprisingly, Tatsuya beats him to it. 

“Do you know who he was?” Tatsuya asks. 

“Who?” Katsuya asks, too startled at Tatsuya starting up a conversation- and for the second time in one day!- to really think about what he’s saying. 

“The kid I saved. Do you know him?”

… Oh. Of course that’d be what he meant. 

“Why do you want to know?” Katsuya asks, and immediately berates himself because _I’m interrogating him again, he’s going to close up again now_ -

But Tatsuya just continues focusing on drying the plate in his hands. 

“I want to meet him,” he says, after a while. “He gave me something important. I want to know who he is.”

“Oh,” Katsuya says. His hands aren’t shaking anymore, but his heart grows heavy in his chest. 

He finishes the dishes and starts wringing out the dishcloth in his hands. Katsuya risks a glance at his brother. Tatsuya’s focused on drying his plate and doesn’t notice. 

_Someday_ , Katsuya thinks, and the thought makes him feel a little better. _I’ll tell you the truth someday_. _Not all of it, but… but I’ll help you find them again_. 

Katsuya smiles. 

“Sorry,” he says, “but I don’t know his name.”


End file.
